Hi, I'm thinking of the trip to Romania. I really want to fly from Stansted but then there's the train or bus ride out to the venue from Bucharest. I'm not averse to spending a couple of extra days at the resort or Bucharest as I've not been to Romania before. Is there anybody else thinking of this route??

Strange stuff with the ticketing, not advertised on social media by the LTA, and now just checked the ticket agency website, and tickets now no longer available. I wonder what happened with our allocation.

Re the team, for a best of 5 rubbers one off match I think there is much more case for picking a specialist doubles pair iff they are your clearly best pair ( I never like it for the week series since I think singles cover is more important ).

However Jossanna are certainly not clearly out best combination, arguably not our best combination at all.

I see, even for this tie, Anne keeping more options open ( and the extra singles option may still be useful on the second day ). I expect same again : Jo, Hev, Laura and Joss. Tara has not particularly pushed her case recently.

Well the likely team haven't lost too much energy or focus by involving themselves in playing too many tennis matches this week.

Poor Anne, everyone massively out of form bar Jo...

I don't see the point in taking Joss/Anna, especially on clay. They don't add any strength in depth, aren't winning matches, and even the "fresh pair of legs" argument doesn't really win it for me, as I suspect the tie won't go down to doubles anyway. And actually, if it did, I wouldn't play them as a pair, I'd go with Heather and probably Jo again. Heather/Joss at a push.

I'd take Jo, Heather, Laura (yes really, she can step in to play doubles with Heather if need be) and then be pretty tempted at a fourth player of someone like Katie S, or even Mandy (won't ever happen but she's probably our best option as a third singles player on the red stuff).

But I suspect team will be Jo, Heather, Laura and Joss again.

If she could play a bit of doubles, I'd atake Katie B, who is having a very good 2017.

Has won a round in, and scored in all eight tournament she's entered - none of those scores were automatic points.
Won more matches than anyone but Johanna. (19-7)
4th best win %. - 73.08% (clearly behind Jo 84.62%, and fractionally behind EWS 75.00%, & Katie S 73.33%)
More points in 2017 than Laura (-20), Amanda (-22) or Katie S (-40), or any of her contemporary peers (Dunne, Christe, Dart etc) - more points per event entered than all those, too.
Only 6 points behind Tara's 2017 points total.
18-2 when winning the first set
6-2 against higher ranked players
1 title, & 1 other final
+80 places in ranking since start of year (20% reduction of starting rank)

Thanks, AliBB.I was actually thinking of posting as to whether there was any Fed Cup relevance to Katie B's very late withdrawal from the Turkey 60K hard court tournament - ie. go hit balls on clay. She has had a very decent start to the year and is 5th Brit in the race ( after Jo, Heather, Naomi and Tara ) plus now all you have added above.

Though if taking anyone else, for a clay tie I'd tend to be with Paul in thinking Mandy would be the best current choice.